Romney, Santorum: The closest Iowa caucus

Ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the early and ongoing establishment favorite for the Republican nomination, was locked in a photo finish Iowa precinct caucus race with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, an asterisk in polls a month ago.

Romney needed the last two precincts of the night to best Santorum by an 8-vote margin in a caucus where 122,000 Iowa Republicans cast ballots in 1,774 precincts.

Santorum, riding Christian right support consolidated late in the campaign, was sweeping rural Iowa. Romney won in urban areas. Libertarian-minded Texas Rep. Ron Paul was running a strong third.

Romney

Romney and Santorum were each receiving about 24.5 percent of the vote, a percentage Romney has held in national and Iowa polls for nearly a year. It is almost exactly what Romney received in the 2008 caucuses.

Santorum is the candidate who caught on, by campaigning the old fashioned way. He spent months in the single digits as the longshot toured all of Iowa’s 99 counties in a pickup truck.

The top three were getting nearly twice the votes of ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, once a frontrunner and now in fourth place. As returns came in, Gingrich saluted Santorum for running “a great positive campaign.”

“What this tells me is that we’ve seen Romney at 25 percent for a long time, with candidate after candidate coming forward only to crash,” Wilbur added. “Santorum is the latest non-Romney, an articulate conservative. The night tells me Mitt hasn’t closed the sale.

“I think this race will go to Florida (Jan. 31) and beyond. I’m hoping to see some of the campaigns come out here for our March 3rd caucuses. We have 43 convention delegates at stake.”

So far, only Paul has a working office in Washington.

Two other candidates who came forward and had their moment in the sun — Texas’ blooper-prone Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann — trailed badly in Iowa.

Perry was still tripping over his tongue on caucus eve, hitting out at Santorum for backing “the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in Arizona.” The famous pork barrel project was to have been located in Ketchikan, Alaska. Perry spent more money than anybody in Iowa and was carrying just two small counties.

Perry may be first out of the race. “I’ve decided to return to Texas,” he said late Tuesday night, adding that he will “determine whether there is a path” where he can still win the GOP nomination.

Bachmann has frequently misrepresented events in American history, claiming at one point that the Revolutionary War battles of Concord and Lexington were fought in New Hampshire (instead of Massachusetts). She even claimed that America’s slave-owning Founders fought to eliminate slavery.

After winning Iowa Republicans’ straw poll in August, and touting Waterloo, Iowa, as her birthplace, Bachmann was receiving just 5.1 percent of the caucus vote.

Romney was making his best showing best in eastern Iowa counties bordering the Mississippi River, a region he carried while finishing second in the 2008 precinct caucuses. He was also running ahead in Iowa’s capital of Des Moines, in Cedar Rapids and in most of Iowa’s urban areas.

Bachmann

Santorum was showing strength in central and northwest Iowa, which is where an evangelical Christian candidate — ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — fashioned his victory over Romney in the 2008 precinct caucuses.

Paul, a controversial libertarian who wants to abolish much of the federal government, legalize drugs, restore the gold standard and withdraw U.S. forces abroad, was running second behind Romney in the Des Moines area and showing strongly in Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa.

The candidates have poured $10 million in the Hawkeye State’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, courting what was estimated to be at most 120,000 Iowa Republicans who would show up in 1,774 precincts around the state to vote on their presidential preferences.

The race saw the appearance of so-called “SuperPACS”, free-spending committees organized by candidates’ supporters but technically “independent.” A pro-Romney SuperPAC spent more than $3 million on negative ads attacking Gingrich. After turning the other cheek for months, Gingrich struck out on Tuesday, calling Romney a liar.

Iowa has not always been a barometer on the Republican nomination. In the last 32 years, only George W. Bush has won the state’s GOP caucuses and gone on to the White House.

Huckabee won four years ago, but faded to 11 percent of the vote a week later in the New Hampshire primary. The Granite State went for Sen. John McCain, the Republicans’ eventual nominee.

McCain is scheduled to endorse Romney in New Hampshire on Wednesday. In 2008, the Arizona senator uttered private oaths about the former Massachusetts governor.

The GOP’s most famous turnaround came in 1988, when Sen. Bob Dole and TV preacher Pat Robertson ran ahead of the party establishment favorite Vice President George H.W. Bush.

But Bush rebounded in New Hampshire. Bush and Dole were together in a split-screen TV appearance on primary night. Dole was asked if he had any words for the man who just defeated him. “Yes, stop lying about my record,” he snapped.

It was downhill for Dole after that.

President Obama, who triumphed over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards four years ago, had no opposition in the Democratic caucuses.

Obama talked by video teleconference to his supporters in Iowa, touting such accomplishments as health care reform and the end of the Iraq war. He took aim at Republicans who would “roll back regulations on clean air and Wall Street reform.”

“How do you respond to people who say you haven’t done enough?” asked a woman from Cedar Rapids named Carol White

“We’ve done a lot and we have a lot to do,” Obama replied. “That’s why we need four more years.”

The president’s reelection campaign has nine field offices in Iowa, a swing state, which will remain open as Republican candidates decamp for next Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.